Luc De Schepper

Hahnemann Revisited
Leseprobe
Hahnemann Revisited
von Luc De Schepper
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 vii
Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................ x
A Brief Overview of Hahnemann’s Life ............................................................ xiii

PART ONE: THE FOUNDATION

1 The Rapid, Gentle, and Permanent Cure ............................................................. 3
2 The Vital Force in Health and Healing ............................................................... 12
3 Laws and Principles............................................................................................ 26
4 Pathology .......................................................................................................... 48
5 Potencies ........................................................................................................... 56
6 LM Potencies ..................................................................................................... 88
7 Case-Taking .................................................................................................... 112
8 Constitution, Timeline, and Temperament ....................................................... 142

PART TWO: THE HEALING PROCESS

9 Prescribing ....................................................................................................... 169
10 Golden Rules and Special Forms of Prescribing .............................................. 199
11 Delusions ......................................................................................................... 221
12 Aggravations, Accessory Symptoms, and Natural Healing Crises ....................... 240
13 Suppression ...................................................................................................... 251
14 Obstacles to the Cure ...................................................................................... 266
15 Management of the Case ................................................................................. 286
16 Palliation and Incurable Diseases ...................................................................... 307
17 The Nosodes ................................................................................................... 316
18 The Bowel Nosodes......................................................................................... 338

PART THREE: THE CHRONIC MIASMS

19 The Roots of Chronic Disease ......................................................................... 355
20 Psora: The Sensitizing Miasm ........................................................................... 363
21 Sycosis: The Miasm of Excess and Overgrowth ................................................ 376
22 Syphilis: The Destructive Miasm ...................................................................... 397
23 The Tubercular and Cancer Miasms ................................................................. 413
24 Homeopathy and Cancer ................................................................................. 425
25 Conclusion: Homeopathy, Medicine for the New Millennium ......................... 455

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 viii Hahnemann Revisited

APPENDICES, NOTES, AND RESOURCES

App. 1 Forms for the Practice ...................................................................................... 459
App. 2 The Never Well Since, or Ailments From.......................................................... 473
App. 3 Symptoms and their Miasms ............................................................................ 480
App. 4 Sample Cases ................................................................................................... 504
Solutions to Sample Cases ................................................................................ 518
Solutions to Cancer Cases ................................................................................ 540
App. 5 Homeopathy and Traditional Chinese Medicine ............................................... 546
Notes............................................................................................................... 563
Resources and Bibliography ............................................................................. 571

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 x Hahnemann Revisited

Introduction

When an allopathic physician converts to homeopathy, there is usually an interesting story

behind it. Mine begins on my first day in practice—a disaster from beginning to end.
When I graduated from medical school in Belgium 27 years ago, I felt like Dr. Schweitzer
and Superman combined: my black bag was filled with pills and injections, my heart full of
good intentions, and my enthusiasm was at its zenith.The day I opened my office, I instructed
my wife (I could not afford a receptionist) that in case a patient showed up, to tell her or him
that the doctor was very busy and let the patient wait a little. It never looks good for the
doctor to sit around waiting for a patient. When the doorbell finally rang, hopes were high
for the first catch of the day. My wife rushed down the stairs while I tried to hide. Having
been well instructed, she said to the man at the door,“My husband will be right with you. He
is talking on the phone with a patient.” The man looked puzzled and then replied, “That’s
very strange, I am from the phone company and I came to install the phone.”
What an embarrassment! However, my painful journey was not finished yet. My first real
patient was a young girl of 15 with a complaint of chronic headaches. Her headaches were
triggered by a change of weather, which was unfortunate as the weather in Belgium changes
four times a day. She had tried all the existing headache medications from her previous
doctors, but she thought this new young gun fresh from medical school would have some
new weapons in his arsenal. Of course I had none.
After the telephone and headache debacle, I took an aspirin for my own headache and
decided there and then that there must be life beyond allopathic medicine.That was 27 years
ago, and I have never stopped studying since then. I discarded all my medical textbooks and
replaced them with acupuncture and homeopathy books. Since then I have learned and
practiced a number of different holistic modalities, also including natural foods nutrition,
vitamins, supplements, and herbs. For the last eight years I have practiced only homeopathy,
because it is more powerful, goes deeper, acts more quickly, and benefits the patient more
than any other modality. To this day I have not regretted this change. On the contrary, I feel
that I have earned far more gratitude and appreciation from my patients and derived far more
satisfaction than I ever could have dreamed of if I had remained an allopathic practitioner.
Of all the healing modalities I have studied, I have found homeopathy the most fulfilling.
Homeopathy individualizes to the patient. The remedies are tailored not only to the patients’
symptoms but also to their personality types and to the reason they became ill. If a patient
feels ill even when her lab tests are normal, we take her seriously and listen carefully. As a
result, we spend time really getting to know our patients, and the patients often say they feel

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 Introduction xi

better just from being listened to non-judgementally. Homeopathy is interested in the why of
our patients: why did they fall sick? why do they react to particular life situations in a particu-
lar way? why do they experience certain emotions? It involves plumbing the depths of hu-
man nature, and the mental/emotional makeup of the patient takes high priority in our pre-
scribing. Homeopathy works with the body’s own natural healing energy, the Vital Force. And it
empowers the patient: the practitioner listens to the patient for guidance in prescribing and
assessing the patient’s reaction to the remedy, encouraging the patient to listen to her body.
The dynamic between practitioner and patient is more evenly balanced in homeopathy than
in most other forms of healing, to the benefit of both.
Homeopathy has unchanging laws and principles, which once mastered, will unfailingly
guide the prescription and the management of the case. Unfortunately the information has
not been easily available, and the homeopathic tradition has largely been lost, at least in the
United States. Ideally homeopathy would be learned best in a clinic, as an apprentice to a
master who had learned from earlier masters, but this is not possible in this country. In this
book I hope to make available to a wider audience the information I have gleaned from an
extensive study of old books and journals, many of which are out of print.
In particular I have been fortunate enough to study Hahnemann’s casebooks from his last
years in Paris.1 The more I read of Hahnemann’s writings, the more I am convinced of his
genius. On every page of his casebooks are brilliant observations and cures. I call this book
Hahnemann Revisited because I believe he has answers and guidance highly relevant for us
today, although sometimes inaccessible because they are couched in his old-fashioned lan-
guage. I have also been greatly inspired by the master homeopaths of the past, like von
Boenninghausen, Hering, Lippe, Kent, Dunham, Grimmer, Tyler, Wright-Hubbard, and
Schmidt; their wisdom fills these pages. I have attempted to elucidate their teachings with
examples from my own practice as well as theirs.
Certain aspects of this book may seem to depart from the mainstream of modern homeo-
pathy—in particular the emphasis on miasmatic prescribing and LM potencies—but these
were an integral part of Hahnemann’s great teaching and I believe they deserve to hold a
central position in homeopathy today. I like to believe that they are not widely used simply
for lack of sufficient training. It would give me great joy and fulfillment if this book could
serve to spread the knowledge of these powerful healing tools of homeopathy.
This book is meant for the serious student of homeopathy, for the practicing professional
homeopath, and for the health care practitioner interested in learning more about it. For the
student, I hope that it fulfills a need for a thorough introduction to homeopathic therapeutics
and methodology. I hope that my fellow homeopaths will find something of value in it, and
that allopathic practitioners will gain a window on a different way of viewing health and

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 xii Hahnemann Revisited

healing. This book is not intended for laypeople, for whom there are a number of excellent
books on family and first aid health care with homeopathy. Many medical terms and abbre-
viations appear in the text without explanation, since professional homeopaths need a solid
knowledge base in anatomy, physiology, and pathology comparable to that of our colleagues
in medicine, chiropractic, acupuncture, and the other healing professions.
I would like to share a few words, if I may, with the students who read this book. Healing
is a gift, and your presence as a healer can be a gift in itself, if you give your patients your
attention, your respect and your love. As Mother Theresa said, “From the abundance of the
heart, the mouth speaks. If your heart is full of love, you will speak of love.” And you will help
your patient heal even before you give a remedy. Don’t be discouraged if you make a mistake.
I have made many mistakes along the way, and I have always learned from them. I have been
practicing alternative medicine for nearly 30 years and I have never stopped learning. I wish
for all those who read this book the same enthusiasm for life-long learning. I have never
placed any priority on financial rewards; instead, I have been more than rewarded by the love
and gratitude of my patients. I would hope that all my readers would share the same values.
Just as in tennis (my favorite game), it is better to serve than to receive.

Hahnemann Revisted: Luc De Schepper Copyright Narayana Verlag www. narayana-publishers.eu

 Suppression 251

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Suppression
Hahnemann’s Warning Two Hundred Years Ago
According to homeopathy’s understanding of disease and healing, symptoms are relatively
exterior manifestations of an underlying disorder; in fact, they are the expressions of the Vital
Force reacting against a disease and not the disease itself. When the patient is treated so that
some (not all) of the symptoms disappear while the underlying disorder is not addressed, the
result is suppression, i.e. the illusion of cure while actually intensifying the internal disease by
blocking some of its natural outlets. Hahnemann followed Nature’s Laws when he warned
against his colleagues’ methods of driving symptoms deeper, in the false belief that a cure has
been established. In Aphorism 201 he writes:
When the human life force is burdened with a chronic disease that it cannot
overwhelm with its own powers, it obviously decides (in an instinctual way) to form
a local malady on a given external part … not indispensable to life … to allay the
internal malady that threatens to annihilate vital organs and rob the patient of life …
The local malady always remains nothing more than a part of the total disease …
shifted onto a more harmless (outer) location of the body in order to allay the inter-
nal suffering.
What a wise observation—the same one made more than 5,000 years ago in Traditional
Chinese Medicine, which makes “symptoms going from the interior to the exterior” part of
its diagnosis of the Eight Conditions. Naturally, the body in its wisdom tries to alleviate the
internal stress on the Vital Force caused by the disease or imbalance by pushing it to the
exterior. Hahnemann says that although exteriorizing the symptoms does not cure the dis-
ease, at least it subdues it or makes it latent so that the individual can function. The same
aphorism states:

In this way, the presence of the external malady reduces the internal disease to
silence for the present, however without being able to cure it or to essentially curtail it.

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 252 Hahnemann Revisited

But, he says, at least it can do less harm because it is on the exterior part of the body.
Hahnemann continues in Aphorism 202:

If the local symptom is topically annihilated (by a physician … who is of the

opinion that he has thereby cured the whole disease) nature makes up for this by
awakening the internal suffering and the rest of the symptoms that already existed
and… heightening the disease.

The stronger the suppressive treatments, the more the internal symptoms will be aroused.
This should be a lesson to the practitioner and patient alike not to mix allopathic and homeo-
pathic prescriptions, mistakenly believing that this will provide “the best of both worlds.”
Unfortunately suppression in our era is far worse than in Hahnemann’s time, when lack of
hygiene and sanitation were the major factors causing disease.Today suppression is the major
cause because it is so widespread and allopathic methods have become so “effective.” Much
stronger methods are now used, such as radiation, chemotherapy and powerful broad-spec-
trum antibiotics. The result is to make the homeopath’s job more difficult. Most patients
come to us with a history of lifelong suppression, beginning with antibiotics in infancy; the
symptom picture is muddied by the lack of symptoms due to suppression; and the patient has
to maintain faith in the homeopath while enduring the return of the suppressed symptoms
following Hering’s Law.

Natural and Artificial Suppression

Natural or Accidental Suppression: Suppression of the body’s normal functions sometimes hap-
pens, not from medications but from the influence of an external factor.This can be a mental
or emotional trauma such as fright, anger, vexation, sudden emotional shock, disappointment,
grief, mental overwork, anticipation anxiety, hearing bad news, embarrassment, or humilia-
tion; or a climate factor such as wet or excessive cold or heat. The Repertory is full of these
rubrics like “Sleeplessness from grief ” (or excitement), “Abdominal pain after vexation,”
“Menses suppressed, from grief ” (or wet feet), “Perspiration, suppressed by chilling,” and
“Milk, suppressed by chilling.”
We must not underestimate the power of suppression after an emotional shock in par-
ticular. As Kent used to say: “An emotional shock is equal in its suppressive powers to a
thousand cups of coffee.”The homeopath can resolve these conditions by prescribing for the
totality, beginning with the Never Well Since. If he only addresses the symptoms, he will
palliate at best, and at worst wake up a sleeping miasm. The patient will then need anti-
miasmatic remedies for a full cure.

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 Suppression 253

Another form of natural suppression can happen when one disease suppresses another
dissimilar one, as Hahnemann observes in the Organon. An acute disease may suppress another
acute one until the first one is cured; or it may suspend a chronic until the acute has run its
course. For example, a chronic knee pain may be temporarily overshadowed by an acute,
intense toothache.
These forms of natural suppression are fairly common and are amenable to homeopathic
treatment, which will restore the suppressed natural function. They are not well treated by
allopathic medicine because they do not fit its paradigm. Emotional triggers may be treated
with a referral for psychotherapy (which is the next best referral besides homeopathy). But
unfortunately, all too often, they are treated with neurotransmitter modulators such as Prozac
and Zoloft, which only lead to further emotional suppression (as I have often heard from my
patients, who complain of feeling emotionally “dead” or “flat” on these medications). As for
suppression from a physical trigger, allopathic medicine does not recognize it or treat it. (The
ICD-9 standard diagnostic manual does not list “suppressed menses from wet feet”!)
Artificial Suppression: Unfortunately, most doctors and patients alike look to removal of the
symptoms as the goal of treatment. Recently I saw a TV ad for a herpes medication that
actually boasted, “It is all about suppression!” But the most visible symptoms, the ones for
which patients first request treatment, are also the Vital Force’s attempts to keep the disease
force on the least important external parts of the body, usually the skin. Look at the relatively
innocuous initial manifestations of herpes zoster or shingles, syphilis and gonorrhea (before
suppression leads to their more destructive secondary and tertiary stages).
Fifty years ago children’s runny noses were treated with a quick wipe of the sleeve (effi-
cient, cheap, and a horror for the Arsenicum mother!). Nowadays we push nasal sprays on our
children and we suppress an innocuous outlet, resulting in many children suffering from
asthma because their nose and cough symptoms were suppressed. Aggressive allopathic treat-
ment tends to move the disease inward to the more important vital organs such as the lungs
in this case, or the brain, heart, liver, or pelvic organs. Under homeopathic treatment correctly
addressing the underlying miasm, the original suppressed manifestation should undoubtedly
reappear. A homeopath with no understanding of miasms could unknowingly keep treating
the surface symptoms and palliating the disease with superficial remedies rather than curing.
Patients who were originally curable can thus become incurable through successive palliative
treatments, whether homeopathic or allopathic. Indeed, unfortunately, the inexperienced ho-
meopath can contribute to the phenomenon of artificial suppression by prescribing non-
miasmatic remedies. If the real cause is not addressed, the disease keeps on getting worse, in
spite of a few superficial symptoms being cured. This is a type of suppression since the cen-
tripetal evolution of the disease is not halted.

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 254 Hahnemann Revisited

Some Specific Methods of Suppression

Medications of Contrary Action: We know that all allopathic drugs, in whatever form, assault the
Vital Force, disharmonize it and add a drug picture to the disease picture (because of their
primary and secondary action, as explained in Chapter Three, Laws and Principles). Different
results are possible from giving an allopathic drug. If the symptoms caused by the drug (i.e.
the side effects) are stronger than the natural symptoms of the disease, the symptoms of the
patient will disappear (which illustrates the principle of one dissimilar disease suppressing the
other). The suppression is then considered “successful” and the physician will claim to have
controlled the disease (she never will claim to cure a chronic disease, as a cure is impossible
without following the Law of Similars). However, if the patient’s Vital Force is strong and
intact, the symptoms of the patient will reappear with the same or greater intensity than before.
The allopathic physician will call the patient resistant to the drug. The patient does not realize
how lucky he is! Unfortunately, the physician will then resort to stronger suppressive measures.
The unfortunate soul whose Vital Force is weakened will respond to the drug with a
worsened disease state which the physician will call complications or side effects. This case is
different from the first scenario, which also had side effects, because in this case the original
disease symptoms coexist with the new drug symptoms.
Dermatology and gynecology are responsible for more suppression than other specialties,
because of their local treatments with creams, lotions, cauterizing and lasering. Rashes, itches,
eczema and psoriasis, discharges, vaginitis, candidiasis, foot sweats and warts can all cause
problems if suppressed. Western medicine recognizes genital warts in women as a risk factor
for PID and infertility or cervical cancer, but it fails to recognize that removal of the warts leads
to these other conditions.
The newest development in dermatology is a zinc spray for psoriasis, the most common
skin ailment. I have seen many times in my own practice how skin conditions suppressed
with zinc can lead to mental and emotional symptoms such as anxiety and depression. (The
proof of this statement is in the cure: following the Laws of Hering, as the anxiety or depres-
sion is treated the skin condition returns temporarily, and then all the symptoms are gone for
good. One of my patients suppressed his reappearing psoriasis with zinc ointment, with the
inevitable result: his depression came back.) And the famous homeopath Compton Burnett,
in The Best of Burnett, describes many cases of suppression. One was the case of an 8-month-
old infant, the grandson of a physician who in spite of Burnett’s protests treated the baby with
zinc ointment for eczema of the scalp. Fourteen days later the suppression resulted in convul-
sions and death of the baby, and the grandfather shed bitter tears, realizing that his treatment
had killed his grandson.1

Hahnemann Revisted: Luc De Schepper Copyright Narayana Verlag www. narayana-publishers.eu

 Luc De Schepper
Hahnemann Revisited
A Textbook of Classical Homeopathy for the
Professional

572 Seiten, geb.

erschienen 2001

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